Vying for the favor of the Elders

The elders are gathering at the Thingstead and a new chieftain is soon about to be announced - but who will it be ❔ There is still time until the decision is made, so you can convince the seven elders and the four viking clans that you are the superior choice. 💪 But beware, your rival is trying to do the same ‼️

Thingstead is a 2p tug-of-war game. 🤼 During the game players use their hand of Influence cards to sway the odds in their favor. On your turn you play a card, doing 1 of 2 things: either playing it face down at a clan card and gaining followers, or playing it to the Thingstead and influencing elders. Both of these are very intriguing! 😁

The Thingstead itself is a rondel ⭕ with 7 elders sitting in a circle. You can move around, and place follower-tokens on elders. Your goal is to have as many followers as the number on the elder so you can “lock” them for final scoring. Your card shows a movement value, a color that has to match the chosen elder, plus it shows 3 numbers at the bottom: these are the amount of followers you can place on the target elder and the two adjacent ones. The position of the opponent’s pawn also affects your ‘follower output’.

Influencing clans work differently. 🧐 Here you place a card facedown to 1 of the 4 clans, then gain followers from the supply, and you also pull their token to your side, in which case you can use the ability of the clan card. If the token was already on your side when you play a card there, you permanently get that ability and flip a new card faceup in the middle. ☝️ The color of your played card doesn’t have to match the clan’s color, but in the final scoring only the ones matching will matter for determining clan favor.

You play until the deck runs out, or someone locks 3 elders, then you see who wins. 🏆 

💭It’s a clever little game where you actually fight for a set amount of points from elders and clan favors. This means you have to be careful with your strategy as the game is quite zero-sum and quite tight! 😉We enjoyed our first plays and there is certainly more to be discovered! 😊